1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a scanning apparatus, and more particularly to the scanning apparatus with the appearance of a pen for scanning a small-sized document.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the Age of information avalanche, the interaction between people is becoming more and more frequent. People are striving for the efficiency of the information exchange and business affair. For benefiting the business cooperation, it is important to make a deep impression on each other when people first meet. Generally, business people routinely exchange their business cards for introducing themselves and providing relevant information, such as a telephone number, a fax number, an address, an E-mail address, or the like, thereby promoting business contacts and communications. Since these business cards are distributed routinely, a large number of business cards are accumulated over a relatively short period of time. It is not easy to put the large number of business cards in order and is time-consuming to look for the specific one therein. Also, the cards being thrown away or lost indirectly cause the environmental pollution and the waste of resources.
With the thriving development of the computer multimedia, the scanning apparatus for capturing the image recently plays an important role in the daily life. The important information of the documents and the business cards, or the image on the photos and the pictures, can be scanned and stored in the scanner apparatus. The image can be further transformed to digital data so that the data can be easily sorted, manipulated, and transferred by the users. However, the common scanners, such as flatbed scanners, are large and bulky, thus not easy to carry and operate. Accordingly, the scanning apparatus for scanning, the small-sized documents, especially the business card, are designed for satisfying the demand of the market.
For the manufacturers of producing the scanning apparatus capable of scanning the small-sized documents, the major researching directions include power saving, low cost, easy to use, and portability. Although the business card scanners sold in the market are smaller than the conventional scanners, and almost as large as the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), the business card scanners are twice to triple as thick as the PDA, and the overall size is still too bulky and not easy to carry.